Town hall chiefs have agreed to plough an extra £8m of funding into improving some of the city’s busiest roads over the next three years.
Manchester City Council has approved the additional funding which is made up of £1.69m from the council’s own clean city fund alongside £6.34m of money the authority successfully applied for from the Department for Transport.
The additional funding will pay for major improvements to some of the city’s most well-used routes, improving safety and saving money by meaning workers won’t have to be regularly called out to fill in potholes.
The work, which will start in summer 2016 and continue until 2018, will see roads being resurfaced and repainted, cutting the number of accidents and making the roads more cycle friendly.
Included on the ambitious improvement programme is a northbound stretch of Broadway, from Nuthurst Road to Moston Lane in north Manchester, used by nearly 19,000 vehicles a day and a three mile stretch of Stockport Road, from Devonshire Street in Ardwick to Lloyd Road in Levenshulme – used by more than 22,000 vehicles per day.
Work will also be carried out along a three-mile stretch of Hyde Road, from the Ardwick roundabout to Kingsdale Road in Gorton. This stretch, used by more than 23,000 vehicles per day, will benefit from new signals at the junction of Clowes Street as well as the resurfacing and repainting work.
More improvements are also being considered for other routes in the city, including stretches of Palatine Road in south Manchester.
A 20% contribution towards the cost of the scheme was needed in order to secure the DfT money, and cash from the city’s £14.5m clean city fund – provided by the council’s shareholding in Manchester Airports Group (MAG) – was used to ensure the project is provided with no cost to Manchester council tax payers.
The fund was provided largely due to MAG’s sell-off of Standsted, and is being used to provide one-off projects which will benefit the city’s appearance and environment.
The council worked with Transport for Greater Manchester to secure the cash from the DfT.
Councillor Kate Chappell, Manchester City Council’s executive member for the environment, said: “These are some of the busiest routes in the city, and they are also roads which we receive large numbers of complaints about.
We need real investment in our roads – simply sending out crews to fill potholes when they are reported is not good enough as these are temporary fixes and the problems often reoccur just weeks later.
“These improvements will also link with other planned projects to help us create a road network fit for a growing 21st century city.”
Picture courtesy of Simon Forsyth, with thanks.
